All welcome, but she's looking for the leading ladies~ also trying a different style for this thread. :x
A loud thrumming wakes her from slumber, and Magpie shifts to her feet as she attempts to work through her confusion. She looks around the den, upon the glittering treasures she stores there— shells, feathers, bones, and glittering stones— but they don't seem to have keyed into some otherworldly vibration. They are still, immobile. Bleary-eyed, she exits the earthen den, scanning the territory for the sound's source. She's never heard anything like this before, and it concerns her if only because it interrupted her rest.
Immediately, she notices the darkened air; rain, perhaps, but it's the oddest storm she has experienced. It's not until she's pelted with the raindrops that she realizes they're the source of the sound; they are biting, than soaring away, but there are so many that the miniature attacks seem constant. Magpie doesn't notice that many more are in the trees, so focused she is on getting away from the bugs and to the den of her Commander. For now, whatever feelings Magpie is sorting through can be put aside.
"Heda," she calls as she nears the entrance, doing her best to keep her voice calm. There's not much they can do about the bugs except to wait it out, but perhaps they can regroup somewhere within
Drageda that is less appealing to the creatures. She isn't sure if
@Thuringwethil is here or not, but she will search for
@Gyda next.
There was an annoying buzz in her ears, present even within the deep throes of her slumber. Gradually, as she was lulled to awaken from her slumber it became louder. Groggily, she gave a flick of her ear as if she were warding off a stray fly, assuming that that was exactly what she was doing. It was only when the noise ceased to stop that she finally stirred awake, ears splaying back to lay flat against the curve of her skull as she glimpsed around the darkness of her cave. It was not, she realized as her paws slid against the rock and dirt floor, like any sort of insect buzzing she could ever recall hearing before. In fact, she wasn't even sure what it was. Her brows furrowed as she pushed herself to her paws, as curious as she was hesitant.
Slowly, she slunk to the mouth of her den's entrance and peered outside but it was not until she climbed out further and took a good look did she let out a small shriek of a yelp and recoil back into the large cavern of her den. The sky was dotted with bugs. The buzzing was the sound of them in flight but there was more than she'd ever seen converged together ...possibly more bugs than she'd ever seen in her entire life! While there was not many things that horrified the shield-maiden it turned out she was, secretly, harbored quite the bug phobia. Part of her wanted to believe that this wasn't real: but when she closed her eyes and poked her head back outside her cave the image and noise remained. A different fear then her phobia began to set in as she watched them converge on a nearby tree, consuming it until it was a mass of squirming bodies.
There were so many of them and they were covering a tree and Gyda could not help the sudden thought that they would eat all of their prey's food and when the herds had nothing left to sate their hunger: they would move on, which could mean that Sleeping Dragon and the other packs would be struggle; and Gyda's only thought was: what had they done to upset the Gods so? For surely this was a story befitting a saga but not one that she would perceive to be a good tale. A voice rose against the constant thrum of the insects in flight and Gyda recognized it well enough. She did not know Thuringwethil's Second very well at all, but Thuringwethil had yet to answer the older woman's call and so Gyda braved the mini beasts, visibly cringing when one flew too close to her face. She was a valkyrie. Not even the idea of her own death scared her but bugs were her undoing?
“Magpie,” Gyda called out to the dark coated Beta, hoping to steal the woman's attention.
Checked with Mica, and have the okay to say that Thuringwethil is not around.
Too late, the Beta thinks she would have been better off remaining in safety of her den; it's not that the creatures are posing a direct threat to her, but they are certainly irritating. So far, she is unaware of the damage they are wreaking upon the foliage, and so she does not associate them with the legends the Corvidae tell. So far, it is only an oddity that she will one day turn into a story of her own.
"Thurin," she whines plaintively into the Commander's den, ducking her head instead. Her anxiety is growing with each fat insect that flies into her body, her face. Darkness greets her, and she frowns as she realizes that the
Heda is not there.
Guilt rankles her as she remembers Wildfire, and a new panic rises in her chest. Where is her niece...? It's when she's pulling her head from the vacant, earthen hollow that she hears her name. As she swings her head to see who beckons, she's part relieved to find it's the viking queen. At least now she won't have to wander aimlessly through the swarm to find her, but there's still the Commander and Wildfire to search for. She's never properly conversed with Gyda, and there would be no time for that now—
"I don't know where the Heda is," she tells the woman, helplessly.
Gyda is successful in grabbing the Beta's attention, though it is getting harder for the shield-maiden to focus upon the sounds of the world beneath the constant hum of the insect legions' wings — including Magpie's voice. It was almost drowned out but luckily, Gyda caught the older female's words at the last moment. The Beta sounded helpless as she spoke of Thuringwethil and her inability to find the Commander. Gyda wondered if she was truly so lost in the Heda's absence or if it was something else but chose not to focus too much upon it. While Thuringwethil's absence in the swarm of locusts did cause for concern to seethe beneath the shield-maiden's chest it had nothing to do Thuringwethil's capabilities and everything to do with the simple fact that when you loved someone: you worried; but Gyda was not so helpless without the Commander. “They are an annoyance,” Understatement of the year. “but they have not bitten me yet, I do not think they are carnivores,” In fact the first time Gyda ever came across a carnivorous bug she was out (or alternatively she might pass out, it's hard to say). “given that I am sure Thurin is fine. She can handle herself,” Gyda had to think about the pack as a whole, currently, and not try to focus just upon the Commander. Besides, Gyda was extremely confident in her statement: after all she'd know Thuringwethil for a long time and the Commander had proven to the Viking Queen time and time again that she was capable.
“We should sweep the territory, check on the other's and assess the damage they are causing,” Gyda was a woman of action and knowing that there was literally nothing they could do to stop the swarm from eating their home bare checking upon her subordinates and assessing the damage to try to come up with a plan was something she could do. “but of course we should also search for Heda while we're at it.” They would find her, eventually. Or she would find them. Gyda moved closer to Magpie, pausing to chase away a bug that had landed upon her flank, snapping her teeth at it, fighting the shiver of disgust that threatened to slither down her spine. “I hope Gavriel and Wildfire seek shelter from this,” She did not know either that well, but she unknowingly held a soft spot for the flame colored girl and Gavriel was, hopefully, the father of her children; and while the reasons may not have been much but they were enough to warrant her concern as well.
Feel free to find her whenever!
They’d come slowly at first, then suddenly they were everywhere. She’d been out of the pack territory, searching along the river when the buzzing began. Little concern was given, but as the sky began to darken, Thuringwethil couldn’t run fast enough. The damage being done around her goes unnoticed as her heart beats in her chest, trying to outrun the swarm but eventually she’s surrounded and there’s no other sound ringing in her ears. The buzz penetrates deep and she nearly stumbles, feeling her balance off and she’s sure she’s going to hear this sound for the rest of her life.
Thuringwethil takes a deep breath and offers a call, but the bugs cancel out her efforts and it’s lost in the short distance encircling her. Any howls for her attention go undetected and she moves onward in an attempt to search for one of her own. Unsure of where they might go in such a disaster, she realizes they don’t have a safe from the elements location to meet. The meeting spot, where they often join together, wouldn’t be ideal—far too open for their purpose—and instead she heads toward the largest caves she can recall in her own home.
Magpie can't help but bristle at the other woman's condescending tone, but it's not something to address here and now— the situation is so far from normal that Gyda's arrogance is unwelcome. The fleimkepa knows that Thuringwethil is able to care for herself, but she is unable to express her true cause for worry; it seems inappropriate, as does rebuking the leader for her ignorant assumptions. Magpie opts for silence and merely sets her jaw in a firm clench. She's seen more of the Commander, anyway, and it is to her that her loyalties belong to. It is only Heda's opinion and trust that matters.
"Yes," she agrees, her voice firm and steady. The bugs are aggravating her, and as each flies painfully into her body, Magpie feels the panic threaten to loose itself again. For the moment, however, she's managed to get a handle on it. The Corvidae moves to lead them as Gyda draws near, a shallow effort to regain control over the perception the Queen seems to have of her. She's surprised when the woman mentions her niece, unsure of why she is calling her out specifically, and makes a neutral comment in attempt to cover her ignorance, "We all should. There's got to be a cave somewhere large enough for all of us."
It doesn't matter if they're separated, not really, but the Corvidae felt more comfortable with large numbers surrounding her. Besides, she didn't particularly want to get stuck alone with someone who thought her a sniveling puppy for the duration of the storm. She thinks she sees a dark figure somewhere behind the thick swarm as they move through the territory, and Magpie looses a sharp bark that she hopes is loud enough to cut through the thrumming sound of the locusts.